The Locked Door
by owluvr
Summary: In her first year, Hermione Granger encounters a locked door, and it causes her a lot more trouble than you might think, because she always has to know the answer. Done for WeasleySeeker's One Line Competition!


The Locked Door

A/N-This is my entry for WeasleySeeker's One Line Competition. The goal is to have the first line be provided, and we write a story for it. The line is: _The Locked Door Fascinated and Puzzled her._ Enjoy!

The locked door fascinated and puzzled her.

Ever since she, Ron, Harry, and Neville had found the door when they had been hiding from Filch, she had wondered about it. The dog also intrigued her. She, after much speculation, had come to the conclusion that it was guarding something.

_But what? And why? And hadn't Dumbledore told the students about it? Why was that corridor forbidden? Was it guarding something dangerous? Why would Dumbledore allow anything dangerous to come to Hogwarts?_

Harry, Ron and Neville seemed to not care about it at all, but she did. _She needed to know_. She always needed to know the answer, there was nothing that gave her as much satisfaction as knowing what the teacher was talking about and getting the answer right. It was like a key in her mind. Now, if only she could find that key to the locked door.

She had realized that it was guarding something right away, even if Ron and Harry didn't. Why else would there be a giant dog standing on a trapdoor at Hogwarts?

"**What do they think they're doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?" Ron had asked, "If any dog needs exercise, that one does." **She was tired and frustrated at the time, and she just wanted to go to bed and think about that dog in peace. So she snapped at him.

"**You don't use your eyes, any of you, do you? Didn't you see what it was standing on?" **she asked.

"**The floor?" **Harry asked, and she rolled her eyes in astonishment. Of course it was standing on the floor. Everything stands on the floor. Honestly, boys could be so stupid sometimes. Don't they ever observe things? You can learn a lot by observing, that's what I noticed.

"**No, **_**not **_**the floor. It was standing on a trapdoor. It was obviously guarding something."**__She glared at them, told them never to drag her into another _plan _of theirs, and went off to bed. In bed, she sat there wondering about the locked door. She has what you might call a thirst for knowledge, and this...this thirst just wouldn't be quenched. So she knew that she had to do something about it.

She pretended like she didn't care about the locked door, but the truth was, she cared very deeply. Sometimes at night, she would sneak out of the common room and go to the third floor corridor and stare at the locked door. _What secrets does it hold and how can I unlock them? _She thought.

Harry, Ron and her became friends soon after, and they told me all about the Gringotts break-in, and how they thought that whatever Hagrid had taken out would what the dog was guarding. Soon, a little round packet wrapped in cloth began to haunt her dreams. It was always the same. Hagird holding the package out to her, then picking up the cloth and unwrapping it, and then the dream would fade.

When Hagird slipped about Nicholas Flamel, she was thrilled. She read as many books as she could think of that might've had Nicholas Flamel. The only thing she had to go on was that Harry claimed to have heard of him. _But what books had Harry read?_ She thought in desperation. Harry hadn't even known about the magical world until a few months ago. He didn't read many books, so where would _Harry _have _read _about _Nicholas Flamel?_ Finally we found it. She was astounded. In this school, behind that very door, was a stone that would make you live forever. The very idea just…just fascinated her.

Towards the end of the year, Harry, Ron and she thought that Snape was trying to steal the stone. They went in after him. She was very proud that she was able to solve the riddle. Then, when she found out that it was Quirell, or Voldemort behind this whole thing and not Snape, she was horrified. Harry could've died. He could've…she didn't know what could've happened to him.

Years later, she would walk by that door and stop and stare at it. In their first year, it had been such an important thing that they got through that door. It had almost been life or death, for Harry especially. Now neither of them seemed to care about it at all. _Was that just all part of growing up? _She would wonder. _Figuring out the puzzle? Unlocking the door?_ On a whim, she grabbed the handle and turned. Nothing. It was locked. She shook her head, turning away, but them an echo of the past, an echo of what had happened behind the door, crept into her head.

"**HAVE YOU GONE MAD?" **Ron had yelled,** "ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT?" **She turned around, smiling a little at the memory.

"Alohamora," She said quietly, tapping the lock. It unlocked, and she turned the knob and stepped inside the room.

It was empty. Completely and utterly empty. If she didn't know better, she would've said that it was an unused classroom. Even the trapdoor was gone. _Well, at least there's still a table in it…_ She started to think, but something caught her off guard. There was a key, shinning and silver at the end of a table. It had damaged wings. She took the key off the table and put it in the middle of the room, right where the trapdoor had been. She smiled as she saw Fluffy's claw marks close to the ground. Then she walked out of the room, and when she closed the door, she didn't bother to lock it.

For the first time ever, she didn't look back. Because for the first time ever, it was not a mystery anymore.

A/N-Well I hope that you enjoyed it, thanks for reading! The bolded just says that text is from the book. It is the property of JKR. Please don't sue me.


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